TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy-loss mechanisms and the annihilation of confined monopoles
AU - Bais, F. Alexander
AU - Langacker, Paul
N1 - Funding Information:
One of us (F.A.B.) would hke to acknowledgeth e hospitahtyo f the Umverslty of PennsylvaniaH igh Energy Physics group, where this work was begun under the partial support of the US Departmento f Energy contract EY-76-C-02-3071.W e are both grateful to the CERN Theoretical Physics Division where this work was completedW. e would hke to thank W. Ftschler for useful discussions.
PY - 1982/4/12
Y1 - 1982/4/12
N2 - The annihilation process for a superheavy monopole-antimonopole pair connected by a relatively light magnetic flux tube (which is possibly relevant to the cosmological monopole problem) is studied. Three energy-loss mechanisms are considered in some detail. The first two are the radiation of photons and weak bosons due to the linear and Coulomb parts of the potential, respectively. Then the energy loss due to the frictional drag of monopoles moving through a relativistic plasma is analyzed. We argue that for the parameters relevant to standard theories this last mechanism dominates by many orders of magnitude and leads to an almost instantaneous annihilation at the time confinement takes place. The implications of this work for the dilution of the baryon to entropy ratio are described.
AB - The annihilation process for a superheavy monopole-antimonopole pair connected by a relatively light magnetic flux tube (which is possibly relevant to the cosmological monopole problem) is studied. Three energy-loss mechanisms are considered in some detail. The first two are the radiation of photons and weak bosons due to the linear and Coulomb parts of the potential, respectively. Then the energy loss due to the frictional drag of monopoles moving through a relativistic plasma is analyzed. We argue that for the parameters relevant to standard theories this last mechanism dominates by many orders of magnitude and leads to an almost instantaneous annihilation at the time confinement takes place. The implications of this work for the dilution of the baryon to entropy ratio are described.
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U2 - 10.1016/0550-3213(82)90456-4
DO - 10.1016/0550-3213(82)90456-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:49049133507
SN - 0550-3213
VL - 197
SP - 520
EP - 532
JO - Nuclear Physics, Section B
JF - Nuclear Physics, Section B
IS - 3
ER -